Love and Country
by dannica webb
Summary: Gibbs/Abby sequel to Against All Odds. How far would you go to save the one you love? When Gibbs returns to NCIS on a secret mission, he learns you can never truly leave the past - or your loyalties - behind. Rated M for torture in later chapters.
1. Prologue: We Are All Innocent

Title: Love and Country

Author: dannica webb

Rating: FR-18 (for torture and violence in later chapters)

Fandom: NCIS

Pairing: Abby/Gibbs, possible slight Tony/Ziva

Category: Romance, Action, Drama, Angst, Friendship

Spoilers: Hiatus, Shalom.

Summary: How far would you go to save the one you love? When Gibbs returns to NCIS on a secret mission, a course of events is set in motion that will change the team forever, as Gibbs learns that you can never truly leave the past – or your loyalties – behind.

AN: Please read the prequel to this story, Against All Odds, if you haven't yet. The prologue of Love and Country is set a couple of weeks after the end of Against All Odds, or about a month after the events of Shalom. A cover image for this story can be found at http :/ / dannicawebb . livejournal . com / 7202 . html

**Prologue – We Are All Innocent**

There are many reasons for Abby to go to Paris.

Madame Director has been on her case about all her unused leave, and spending a week or two in the City of Lights is infinitely preferable to a week or two trapped at home with the security guards refusing her entrance to the Navy Yard.

It's been years since she's participated in any kind of academic conference, and she misses the thrill of the environment of learning. She loves the lab, loves NCIS, loves her job, but there's something about pure research that she finds utterly stimulating. It's _fun_, and she hasn't done anything just for fun in a long time.

She's seen the looks Tony and Ziva have been giving each other, and they deserve a little bit of happiness – probably the kind they won't find, as much as she adores Ziva, while Abby is sharing Tony's bed. It's not that Abby doesn't love Tony; she does, sometimes so much it hurts. But if either of them are ever going to move on, if Tony's going to get to have a normal love life – or any kind of life, for that matter – she's going to have to learn to be by herself. If only for a little while.

As long as her quiet revelation to Tony hangs in the air, as long as Gibbs's ghost haunts her lab, she's going to be choking on those three words. She thinks, maybe, wistfully, that if she can gain a little perspective, she might be able to get to a point where she can run a piece of evidence without expecting Gibbs to walk through the door. She might be able to make it through the night alone.

But there's only one very convincing reason for Abby to stay, and he's walking into her lab instead, Caf-Pow! in hand.

She chooses a night when Ziva's over for dinner to broach the subject with Tony. She's mentioned it to Ziva in passing, and – though it balances the odds unfairly in her favor – she's praying that having the other woman's approval behind her will be enough to overcome Tony's objections.

He's reluctant at first, but something in Abby's eyes – or maybe in the touch of Ziva's hand on his arm – causes him to give in without too much of a fight, for which Abby is grateful. She can read the uncertainty in his assent, though, the deep-seated fear that if she leaves NCIS, she won't be returning. She knows this emotion well; it's the same fear that paralyzed her when Tony left for a week to go to the security conference.

Later, after Ziva's gone home, she comes into the kitchen where he's putting away the wineglasses and walks up behind him, twining her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek against his back. He sets down the glass he's holding and turns to face her, returning the embrace. Abby swallows hard, unable to find her voice for a few moments, shaken by the realization of how deeply Gibbs's leaving has affected their ability to trust one another.

Finally, she pulls back and looks up at him, her eyes searching his. "I'll always come back, Tony."

***

Each reluctant step down to autopsy feels a little like a betrayal of Abby's faith in him, and Tony is ashamed of his own uncertainty. But Ducky has always been the voice of reason, for all of them, and as much as he loves Abby, confronting her with what he's seen will probably only lead to an argument. He doesn't want to repay her trust in him by making her think he doesn't return it.

Ducky is sitting at his desk going through some reports when Tony walks through the double doors, and Palmer appears to be gone for the evening. The sound of the doors opening causes Ducky to turn in his chair.

"Evening, Anthony," he says, his eyes lifting in surprise. "What can I do for you?"

Tony leans against Ducky's desk, looking down at his clasped hands and then back up at his friend. "It's about Abby," he says quietly, hesitantly.

"Is she alright?" Ducky responds quickly, alarm creeping into his voice, causing Tony to hold up a hand.

"No, no, nothing like that. She's fine, Duck." Tony sighs, running a hand through his hair, then takes the plunge. "Paris isn't just about the conference, is it?" In for a penny....

"What do you mean?" Ducky asks, sitting back in his chair and meeting Tony's gaze, his tone of voice indicating that he knows exactly what Tony means.

"I saw the invitation, Ducky. It's practically a job offer." He stands, pacing back and forth in front of Ducky's desk, pensive. He can feel Ducky's gaze following him.

"I wouldn't suggest telling her you read her mail – although if you do, I'll of course provide the autopsy free of charge," Ducky says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Tony waves off the attempt at humor, responding in a strained tone. "I wasn't snooping, Ducky...it was lying on her desk when I went down to the lab to see her. She'd gone up to see Jenny and I just...glanced." He knew Abby wouldn't see it quite so innocently if he told her.

"Anthony, it's an academic conference. Abigail's simply going to see some of her fellow scientists and friends."

Tony stops and shoots Ducky a dark look. "Friends who are trying to take her away from NCIS."

Ducky gives a small chuckle. "Do you know how many job offers Abby has turned down in her six years here?"

At this, Tony is a little surprised. Abby doesn't talk about her qualifications – not like McMIT and his Johns Hopkins degree. It's not that Tony thinks Abby's a low-level lab rat, but her reasons for working at NCIS – or the fact that she's probably overqualified for the job – aren't something he considers often.

"Dozens," Ducky continues. "This probably isn't even the first offer she's received since Jethro left, though certainly it's the most prestigious." He stands and walks over to Tony, laying a hand on Tony's arm. "Abby loves research, and the time away from the lab will be good for her, Tony. She'll go and have fun, and turn them down like she always does."

Tony meets Ducky's eyes. The knots of apprehension have loosened, but only slightly. "And what if she doesn't?" he asks quietly. "What if...what if now that Gibbs is gone, it's not the same for her?"

Ducky gives another slight laugh. "Well, it's not the same for any of us, dear boy." His grip on Tony's arm tightens, though, and he regards Tony seriously. "Our Abigail doesn't just stay for Jethro. He's one of the reasons, of course, but Abigail loves the work, she loves this country, and she loves all of you. She's quite a brilliant woman, Anthony...she could certainly have chosen better paying, and less stressful, positions. She's proven her commitment to NCIS, and it's not just because of Jethro."

Tony nods slowly, lifting his other hand to pat Ducky's. "Alright." As he turns to leave the lab, he's not sure if it's the hesitancy in his voice or the tension still apparent in his stride that causes Ducky to speak again.

"Anthony..."

He turns back from the doorway. "Yeah, Ducky?"

"Abigail has an enormous amount of faith in you." Ducky clears his throat, his voice suddenly very grave. Tony feels pinned under the older man's gaze. "She has her reasons for leaving, just as Jethro did, whether you agree with them or not. But trust is a two way street, my boy. The question is, do you trust her enough to believe she will come back?"

Ducky's words stay with Tony in the few days leading up to Abby's departure for Paris. Out of a selfish desire to keep breathing – for he's fairly certain he'd have to deal with the combined lethal force of both Abby and Ziva were he to voice his apprehensions – and the reason for them – aloud – he doesn't reveal to Abby that he knows the invitation to Paris is not without strings. But he does think deeply on what Ducky said.

So when he takes her to the airport, he's firmly shoved down his hesitancy, trying with everything he has to believe in Abby as much as she believes in him – to deserve the faith she has in him. He pretends everything is fine, and tugs a pigtail, smiling when she promises to call him every day. She's just about to go through the gate when she turns around and runs back to him, hugging him fiercely.

"Love you," she says, pressing her forehead to his. He barely has a chance to whisper the words back before she's gone.


	2. Chapter I: What's Past is Prologue

**Chapter I – What's Past is Prologue**

Gibbs isn't keen on returning to NCIS for any reason, let alone a mission, but Jenny's argument is one he can't refute. He ignores Mike's not-so-subtle comments about unfinished business, knowing his former boss isn't just talking about arms dealers still on the loose. Mike has been on him to go back to Washington for weeks now, dropping hints here and there about lazy probies who take early retirement as the easy way out. Gibbs doesn't rise to the bait; he just makes equally barbed comments regarding pots and kettles.

When Jenny briefs him on his cover, she doesn't mention any of the people he left behind at NCIS. But his departure is the elephant in the room; their former easy banter is now stilted, and he can sense the same disapproval in Jenny's manner that he's seen in Mike's.

It grates on him, mostly because he's not entirely certain anymore that their disapproval is misguided.

He doesn't expect anyone to be in the building when he comes for the briefing; it's the only reason he agreed to meet Jenny at the Navy Yard in the first place. It's well past midnight when he emerges from her office, and she walks with him to the elevator, which opens just as they're about to reach it.

When Tony steps out, Gibbs isn't sure which of them is more surprised. Time stands still for a moment as Tony stares at him briefly in shock.

Later, he's grateful Jenny is much stronger than she looks. Tony's "son of a bitch" was cut off by her reprimand, just as she blocked the younger agent's fist from connecting with Gibbs's jaw. She must have expected an outburst; surprise had given Gibbs enough pause to keep him from stopping the punch from connecting.

No one says anything for a moment, but Jenny's glare at Tony is both reproving and somehow sympathetic. Tony opens his mouth to say something else but seems to think the better of it, pushing past both of them to grab something out of his desk and disappearing through the stairwell door with a slam.

"What the hell was that about?" Gibbs is well aware he's earned the second b in his name, and that the list of people who'd like to take a swing at him is longer than his full case history. He couldn't, however, have envisioned any world in which Anthony DiNozzo would be on it. Then again, a lot has changed.

Jenny presses the down button with a heavy sigh. "Abby's gone."

"She's _what_?" Alarm worms its way into Gibbs's gut. Surely Jenny would have told him if anything serious had happened. This is the only thought that keeps him from full-on panic.

"She's gone to Europe for a conference."

The knot in Gibbs's stomach loosens. Jenny still hasn't met his eyes. He studies her profile as they walk into the elevator. He would press her again but she already knows he wants answers.

After a few seconds, she releases another sigh, meeting his gaze. "Tony blames you. He doesn't think she's coming back."

"Is she?"

"Honestly, Jethro? I don't know." She looks away from him again as they step off the elevator into the parking garage, and he walks her to her car. "They didn't take your leaving well," she adds in an abrupt tone that tells him nothing and everything he needs to know.

As far as she is concerned, they're not his concern anymore. And that was his choice.

The realization cuts deeply but he doesn't show it, opening the door for her. She's put the key in the ignition and he is about to close the door when he asks her one last question.

"Where in Europe?"

"Paris."

***

Ducky is surprised to realize there's someone else in autopsy when he arrives for work the next morning, well before dawn. Mother's restlessness has kept him up for most of the night, and having given up on sleep, he's decided catching up on paperwork is in order.

Normally, Abigail might be lying on one of the cold metal tables; she comes down to stare at the ceiling sometimes, claiming it helps her clear her mind. He doesn't object to her morbid behavior, mostly because he enjoys her company. But today's visitor is decidedly male and much older than Abigail.

"Jethro." Ducky sets his bag on his desk, flipping on the lamp.

Jethro opens his eyes and turns his head in Ducky's direction, blinking owlishly at the light. After a few moments, he sits up and swings his legs over the side of the table. "Duck."

"I don't suppose this means you're back." It's not a question. Ducky sits down in his chair, facing his friend.

"Just for a mission. A favor to Jen."

"Of course." Ducky doesn't attempt to keep the slight bitter tinge from his words. He expects Jethro to comment on the animosity hanging in the room, but instead the other man stands and walks over to lean on the edge of Ducky's desk.

"DiNozzo took a swing at me."

Ducky wonders if the surprise of this is the reason Jethro has even bothered to see him. It's not out of friendship; since going to Mexico, he knows Jethro hasn't contacted anyone with the exception of his brief return to help Ziva out. He ponders the merits of brushing off the situation, wondering if getting Jethro to realize just what the rest of them have gone through in his absence will make any difference for any of them.

Finally, he decides to take a chance. "Anthony's rage towards you is far outstripped by his anger towards himself."

"What do you mean?"

"He's been nursing quite the grudge over his belief that you abandoned Abigail." Ducky opens his drawer and pulls out two glasses and a flask of whiskey. Both of them are far too sober for a conversation of such magnitude, even if it is only five in the morning. "His anger at himself for what he sees as his failure to take care of her in your absence is far more powerful," he adds, pouring two fingers for them both and promptly downing most of his.

Jethro holds the cup in both of his hands, leaning heavily against Ducky's desk, seemingly at a loss. "I had my reasons for leaving, Ducky."

"I know that, Jethro," Ducky says, downing the rest of the whiskey and setting the glass down on his desk as he looks up. "That doesn't change the amount of pain it caused them. Anthony isn't angry at you as much as he is hurt that you left him as well. Anger is just easier to cope with."

"They can't have believed I'd be around forever. They need to learn to accept change." Jethro downs his own whiskey once he pushes the words out, setting his glass next to Ducky's.

Ducky lets out a short, humorless laugh. "Abigail is plenty used to change, and to people leaving. Anthony as well. Neither of them need object lessons in that, but you're aware of that." This is as close as the well-bred Scotsman would ever get to telling Jethro he's lying to himself; Ducky's own inbred sense of manners keeps him from knocking some sense into his friend, quite literally, as Anthony has attempted to do. It doesn't keep him from having the urge, however.

"I can't be who she needs me to be, Ducky. Not with the ghosts I'm carrying."

"Do you believe you're the only one with ghosts?" Ducky counters, with no small measure of vehemence creeping into his voice. "Abigail doesn't expect anything more than you can give. She never has." He stands up, meeting Jethro's gaze. "She's the only woman, besides, perhaps, your first wife, who knows the truth of who you are and has never written you off or betrayed you. The only one who has loved you unconditionally. And you threw that away."

His tone loses some of its heat as he steps away to pull some files out of the cabinet near his desk. "I know you had your reasons, Jethro; I'm not arguing with that. I just hope it was worth it."

As he sits down to begin working, Jethro straightens and walks out of autopsy without looking back. Ducky hopes against hope that he will reconsider his decision to make the return temporary when the mission is over.

He hopes that Abigail will still be here if he does.


	3. Chapter II: Retreat

AN: Well, originally I planned for the events of the next two or three chapters to only take up one chapter, but things got a little long, so I decided to cut this chapter off a bit early and spread things out. Basically, Claws and Tom got in my head and they are demanding the right to a bit more slightly-less-angsty fun with Abbs before Gibbs shows up and I commence with the whumping. So I hope you enjoy it. Tom is based on a hint Abby dropped in an episode that takes place, I think, in one of the earlier seasons - she says the oldest man she's ever dated was her biology professor, who was sixty-five (if I recall correctly). Anyway, he's loosely based off of that little hint of Abby's past, with a few tweaks.

**Chapter II – Retreat**

"Hello, Persephone."

Abby grins, flicking her phone closed. She's just finished calling Tony to let him know she landed safely when she hears the familiar voice behind her. She drops her suitcase as she turns, rushing its owner with a hug.

"I missed you," she mumbles against his chest, holding on for a moment. When she takes a step back, the questions come pouring forth in a rush. "How've you been? How's Versailles? How's Claudia? Tell me everything!"

Tom laughs as he reaches down to grab Abby's suitcase. "Over dinner, Seph. I promised Claudia we'd be home as soon as possible. She's made your favorite."

"Yay!" Abby hoists her backpack, reaching for his hand as they head out to the car. "So we're going sightseeing, right?"

His long-suffering groan causes her to punch him lightly on the arm as he opens the car door for her. "You are terrible, Thomas Bourne. You've lived in Paris for eight years and never even gone to the Eiffel Tower. What's the point?" she says melodramatically, pulling her legs into the car and smoothing down her black and red skirt.

"I'll have you know I like the quiet," he retorts as he pulls out of the parking lot. "But...as there's two days until the symposium starts...I suppose we can squeeze in a visit to a few of the cathedrals, if nothing else."

Her face breaks into another huge smile as she begins a list of all the abbeys and churches she wants to see, her chatter filling the car until they reach Tom's house in Versailles.

It's not until after dinner – roast duck that Abby suspects Claudia has spent all day making – that she finally insists on getting the full tour of the house.

Claudia gets up to clear the dishes. "You both should get to bed soon if you're planning on making the tourist rounds tomorrow," she chides, leaning over to kiss Abby's forehead.

Abby stands and grabs her plate and Tom's. "I missed you, too, Claws." The older woman's lips quirk up in a smile as Abby follows her into the kitchen. They both set the dishes on the counter, and when Claudia turns around, she pulls Abby into a hug that takes Abby's breath away. They break apart after a few moments, Claudia tucking her long, silver hair into a bun as she busies herself with the dishes. "How's he doing, really?" Abby asks.

"Better now that you're here," Claudia says as she starts running water, speaking quietly to keep from being overheard. "He's worried about you. So am I, dear."

Her stare doesn't linger on Abby too long, but it doesn't need to. Tom's chatelaine can be, in her own way, just as intimidating as Gibbs. She has known Abby almost as long as Tom has, since college, and though she has mellowed since the death of her husband, who used to keep the grounds, she is still as sharp-witted as ever. And as warm-hearted.

"I know." Abby leans against the counter with a sigh. "I'm – " she starts to say fine, but she is a bad liar at the best of times. "Alright, I'm not okay, but getting away for a bit helps. I'm glad Tom invited me."

"I've been on him to have you over ever since he bought this house," Claudia says. "It's far too big for just the two of us anymore. I keep telling him humans are not meant to be alone, but that man has got to be the most stubborn one I've ever met."

For Abby, those words conjure an image of another silver-haired man with piercing blue eyes. "Not the most stubborn one I've ever met," she pipes in, "but damned close." When Claudia grins at that, elbow-deep in suds at the large sink, Abby leans over to hug her from behind. "Love you, Claws," she whispers.

Just as she steps back, Tom walks into the kitchen. "C'mon. I should show you around before she insists on tucking us both in," he says, leaning against the doorway. "I'm seventy years old and she still treats me like a child." He shakes his head mirthfully as he turns to walk out of the kitchen.

Abby follows him out, unable to keep from laughing as Claudia retorts, "Only because you act like one."

He leads her through the living room – she already gaped openmouthed at the high ceilings and huge windows on the way in – and into the library. He doesn't bother to flourish as they enter the room; she's already twirling about in excitement, wandering down the wall and running her fingers along the spines. She can feel his eyes on her back when she stops suddenly and turns, pinning him with a glare.

"Don't think I can't see what you're trying to do," she says accusingly, amusement flickering in her eyes.

He holds up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, his face the perfect picture of innocence. "Whatever could you possibly mean, Seph?"

She rolls her eyes at him. "You can't tempt me away from my meager government wages with such demonstrations," she says, shaking her finger at him, then walks past him out of the room. "I shan't be moved," she adds playfully over her shoulder.

He follows her out, pretending to take her at her word, but she knows he knows she's already plotting when to sneak back down and investigate the library. She's aware that most of the money for the house actually came from working for private laboratories before he came to teach at the École Normale Supérieure, and besides, he would never really try to force her hand in terms of changing careers. But she can't help poking a bit of fun at his motives nevertheless.

Her thoughts flicker back to the veiled job offer in the invitation. Her lecture at the symposium will be a test of sorts, at least as far as the ENS are concerned, but she doesn't plan on accepting. Nevertheless, putting some distance between herself and NCIS lessens the weight of the grief in her heart, and for this she's grateful for the chance to get away for a week. If only for a little while, she almost feels like she can breathe normally again.

Tom knows her well enough to know she's getting pensive, leaning into his arms as they climb the stairs, but she shakes her head, unwilling to discuss it just yet. She stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and shoves him playfully towards his room, turning back down the plushly carpeted hallway towards the guest room that Claudia's made up for her.

Exhaustion lingers just behind her eyelids, but she takes her time in the bath and then curls up in the middle of the bed with a sigh. It's nearly two a.m. for her when she reaches for the phone to call Tony, but not even bedtime for him, she knows.

"Having fun yet?" he says without preamble when he answers the phone, his tone playful.

She smiles, slipping underneath the comforting weight of the blankets and letting her body sink into the plush pillows. "So far. We're going church-hopping tomorrow."

She can practically hear him roll his eyes. "Only you, Abbs. Only you." She can also hear the _I miss you_ in his voice, the phrase he won't say first, because that would sound needy and Tony likes to pretend he doesn't need anyone.

Because she knows what it means to have to preserve that little bit of pride, she whispers it for him. "Miss you." Before the solemn silence can envelop the conversation, she continues in a lighter tone, "How's Ziva?"

"Writing a book on a thousand different ways to murder an FBI agent," Tony responds dryly. "We've got another joint investigation. I may just save her the trouble and shoot them all myself. The director says we have to let them live, though."

"She spoils all the fun." Abby grins. "I guess it's okay as long as the FBI tech isn't ruining my lab."

"Oh, no," Tony says with mock seriousness. "I made sure all your instructions were to be followed to the letter, madam."

"You'd better." Abby burrows deeper under the covers. "Hug Ziva and Tim for me. And Ducky!"

"I'm pretty sure hugging isn't listed under the responsibilities in the Team Leader guidebook," Tony retorts.

"I can kill you – "

" – and leave no forensic evidence. I know." She has to suppress a snicker at his long-suffering sigh. "I'll think about it."

"That's better. Talk to you tomorrow." She manages to squeeze in a rushed, "Love you!" before the sound of the dial tone. Pulling the phone away from her ear, she glances at it with a frown, then hits the end call button and sets it on the nightstand.

Sometimes she thinks he's taking this following-in-Gibbs's-footsteps thing a little too seriously.


	4. Chapter III: Refuge

AN: I have never been to Paris and all of the places and such that I mention here just come from the research I've done online, so please forgive any errors I've made.

Chapter III – Refuge

He finds Abby curled up on the sofa in the library, her legs pulled up underneath her, head resting against the arm of the couch. There's a book open across her lap, but her eyes are unfocused, glancing off in the direction of the window. The blinds are open to reveal the darkness.

Tom has never been too adept at subterfuge, however, and he's still several steps away from the couch when she becomes aware of his presence. She sits up suddenly, as if startled, then realizing it's only him, lifts her arms in a yawning stretch. "You should be asleep," she says astutely when she's coherent again, setting the book on the table next to the couch and burrowing into the dark red afghan spread across her lap.

"That's my line."

Her lips twist wryly when he says it, but she doesn't offer an immediate comeback. She knows he expected to find her down here, his premeditation evident in the extra cup of tea he's carrying. She accepts it gratefully and takes a long sip before speaking. "You were checking up on me," she accuses, her sleepy green eyes peering over the rim of the cup.

"Guilty as charged," he accedes, sounding not at all contrite as he settles his tall, lean frame on the other end of the couch. "I merely wanted a glass of water," he adds tardily, by way of defense.

She's tempted to draw things out a bit, to tease him about Claws switching the kitchen and guest room when she wasn't looking, but she's really just exhausted and it's a rather cruel deflection at this point to pretend Tom doesn't know her. She's woken gasping in his arms too many times, and although for years she believed she'd banished her nighttime demons, it was not an unreasonable conclusion for him to draw. Since Gibbs left, she feels sometimes as if she's trapped in her twenty-two-year-old self once more.

So she sips her tea steadily to avoid speaking until she feels a slightly queasy feeling rise in her stomach, and then just keeps her fingers wrapped around the cup for comfort. "My father died." When he doesn't say anything – which is, admittedly, the best reaction at the moment – a nervous laugh escapes her lips, briefly filling up the silence. "I thought...dammit. I hoped that once he wasn't still breathing somewhere, once I could be certain I wouldn't wake up to find him on top of me or come home to find him sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle in his hand..." She trails off, her voice breaking on the words. She sets Claudia's good china on the side table to avoid shattering it, lifting a hand to her mouth to stifle the tears threatening to overwhelm her. "I just want him to go away. That's all I ever wanted."

"I know, Seph," he sighs, and when she curls deeper into herself, shaking involuntarily, he reaches for her and presses his arms tight around her until she can breathe again. She shifts closer to him, her cheek against his chest, finding his heartbeat and focusing on it until the tears have stopped.

After several moments, she lifts her head from his chest. "I was doing better, you know, at NCIS."

He nods.

She shrugs helplessly. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why the nightmares have returned; once she became comfortable at NCIS, just as once she'd been comfortable with Tom, she developed enough trust in the people around her to have some stability in her life, a quality she'd otherwise forever lacked. At this point she's almost as used to the pain as she is sick of it; she can easily point to the shattering of the truths on which she'd built her existence for the six years she'd worked at NCIS, the truths her subconscious had been duped into believing, the ones that began with her faith in Gibbs.

Now she has to rebuild herself once more, and she's just not sure she can do it. She says as much aloud, relaxing into Tom's arms with a heavy sigh. "And it kills me, because I'm not who they expect – who they need me to be," she continues. "Not the same eternally cheerful good time girl."

"They know that's not all you are, Persephone," he says, combing his fingers through her inky hair. "You believe the best of people, even if you don't expect it. You always have. It's who you are, and that won't change."

"And if it does?" she murmurs.

He doesn't bother to dignify that with an answer, but she can hear it anyway in the silence, the silence that ensues as she bites off the urge to lash out, to accuse him of being unfair, of putting her on a pedestal.

She'd done it years ago when he first gave her the nickname, let him know in no uncertain terms that she didn't aspire to be a goddess. That she didn't aspire to be anything to anyone, for that matter. Back then she'd been a true lab rat, sitting in the back of the class, fading into the wallpaper as much as possible. It took her almost a year to dig out of him the admission that he called her Persephone not because he wanted her to be something more than she was, but because his favorite thing about her was that she could exist between darkness and light and still be a force of nature all her own.

By then, she almost believed it of herself.

Tom had been the first man she'd ever met who expected nothing more of her beyond what she was capable of giving. Gibbs was the second.

Only now she's just not sure she's capable of letting him go.

***

Abby opens one eye the next morning to see Claudia peering down at her, hands planted on her hips and expression of disapproval firmly in place. She opens the other with a barely-voiced sigh, lifting herself off of Tom's lap as carefully as possible to avoid waking him up and wrapping the afghan around her pajama-clad body as she follows Claudia into the dining room.

Once they are safely out of earshot and Abby is tucking into pancakes and orange juice at the dining table, Claudia mutters exasperatedly, "You two and your nocturnal wanderings. No one believes in getting decent sleep in this house but me, I swear. I might as well have put you in the same room."

"Were you trying to protect my innocence, Claws?" Abby teases, a wicked gleam in her eye. "Cause, you know – "

"Please, child, I'm widowed, not dead," Claudia retorts with a roll of her hazel eyes. "I've heard it all before."

Abby takes a swig of orange juice and leans back in the chair. "You'll never be old, Claws." There's a lull in the conversation and she thinks about bringing up Tom's relentless solitude because she knows Claudia is concerned about him as well, but wrung out from the emotional night, she opts instead to ask after the garden. Claudia has kept it herself since Ira's death years before, and the topic of planting and harvesting keeps them chattering until Tom wanders sleepily in an hour later.

They get ready quickly in order to make it on time to the second mass of the day at Notre Dame. Abby thinks the usual tourist attractions are a little overdone, but she can't go back to D.C. without pictures of the famous cathedral for the nuns, and she has yet to attend a mass she didn't enjoy. Before she drags Tom to the museum dedicated to the history of the cathedral's architecture, she stops at the sanctuary housing the statue of the Virgin with Child. She lights a candle for the team, for Tony, for Claws and Tom, and finally for Gibbs. After she prays, she reaches up to light another candle for Shannon and Kelly, blinking back the tears collecting at the corner of her eyelids.

After the museum, she insists on seeing a part of the catacombs, but they don't stay too long; Abby is eager to visit the Eglise St. Sulpice. They have lunch al fresco; Tom complains a bit about seeing so many skeletons putting him off his food, and Abby teases him with the threat of actually making him visit the Eiffel Tower. Instead they briefly visit the Sacre Coeur Basilica at Montmartre before heading off to tour the royal tombs of Saint-Denis, where Abby is fascinated by the cadaver tombs. The fun of snapping pictures to take back to Tony, Ziva, and Tim, who will pretend to find them interesting, and Ducky and the nuns, who actually will enjoy them, takes her mind off of everything else for several precious hours.

Tom takes her out for dinner to L'Etage, where she drinks a little too much wine and has a little too much tiramisu for dessert. They stay for the music, a heady beat that sinks into her blood, and she pulls Tom onto the dance floor, swaying back and forth contentedly. Tom is just mentioning that they should get back in case Claudia begins to worry, and Abby is just about to agree because she's feeling pleasantly sleepy and languid, when she sees Gibbs out of the corner of her eye.

She pulls away from Tom so abruptly that it takes few seconds before he realizes where she's gone and follows her as she pushes her way through the crowd, suddenly awake, her senses alert. Just as she's almost made it to the bar, she thinks she spies the back of his head at the exit, and she chases the vision out onto the street.

When Tom finally catches up, she's standing stock still amongst the tourists and clubbers walking back and forth along the narrow cobblestones of the Rue du Faubourg du Temple. "I could have sworn..." she starts to say, but trails off, taking Tom's proffered arm and letting him lead her as the sadness tightens its hold in her chest.

That night when she calls Tony, she goes on at length about the catacombs and cadaver tombs, teasing him when he exaggerates in mock horror. She can't – won't – tell him about the club, mostly because she isn't sure which hurts more –that Gibbs might have actually been there, or that her grief is somehow taking shape in the shadows.

She's so busy hoping he doesn't hear the omission behind her own words that she completely misses the secret lying behind his.


	5. Chapter IV: Last Tango in Paris

AN: Lots of language in this chapter.

Chapter IV – Last Tango in Paris

Memories assault him as soon as he sets foot on French soil. The air is heavy with them; they crawl underneath his well-groomed clothing – DiNozzo wouldn't be making smartass remarks about Sears if he could see Gibbs now – and burrow into his skin. He takes his passport back from the customs officer impatiently when he's let by with a mere, "Merci, Monsieur Carlisle."

At least Jenny's cover seems to be holding up well enough. It's the same cover he used the last time, but security measures today are a world away from what they were seven years ago, and his list of misgivings about this little misadventure is growing by the minute. Not for the first time, he wishes he could trade the autumn breeze off the Mediterranean for the warmer, balmier one off the Gulf of Mexico. He curses Jenny and Mike both as he meets the limousine waiting outside the airport.

He doesn't recognize the driver as an agent, but when the man points to the cache of weapons lying next to Gibbs on the seat rather than pointing a weapon at Gibbs himself, Gibbs judges the man trustworthy enough. He knows the streets to the Hotel Le Meurice like the back of his hand, so he busies himself finding the baby Glock tucked neatly in the side of the bag and loading a clip, his hands itching instead for the comforting weight of the Sig.

Most of his attention on his way through the ornate lobby and back to the nearly as ornate Presidential Suite is spent scanning his surroundings for anomalies. Once inside the suite, he works in tandem with his butler-cum-driver-cum-partner, sweeping the room for bugs.

The Presidential Suite is the second most expensive and second most ugly suite the hotel offers, its first being the Belle Etoile Royale – the most expensive hotel room in all of Paris. His lips twisted wryly when Jenny mentioned that she was "willing to spend the equivalent of six months of your salary in order to properly impress the bastard, not blow the whole mission budget, Jethro." Now, he feels a surge of gratefulness; the ludicrously bright red upholstery in the Presidential's sitting room is already causing a familiar, painful tightening behind his eyes. He's not sure he wants to see the Belle Etoile.

Of all of Paris, though, it is this bedroom in this suite in this particular hotel that he finds the most stifling, the place they made love for the second time. The first had been the stakeout in Marseilles. He wonders if Jenny thought about it when she made the reservations.

He decides he damned well doesn't want to know.

Once they are reasonably sure the room isn't bugged, he motions the other man into the bathroom and turns on the bathtub tap full blast just to be safe.

"Agent Parsons," the man says by way of introduction, smoothing his tailored uniform self-consciously before reaching for Gibbs's hand.

Gibbs thinks it's a little late for polite gestures, but shakes it anyway. He knows from experience that it's better to reassure green agents in a situation like this, but still doesn't bother introducing himself. He takes a second to curse whoever assigned Parsons to his team; the kid looks like it's his first undercover mission.

"We - we're expected to meet up with Agent Christianson at the L'Etage club at 2100, sir," Parsons stammers out slowly.

Gibbs checks his watch, his mouth tightening. They've wasted too much time. "The limo will be too noticeable in that area of town," he bites out abruptly.

"I've recquisitioned a smaller vehicle, sir."

"Don't call me sir," he responds automatically. "I work for a living." As he turns the tap off and moves to exit the suite, he adds, "And for God's sake, try not to make it so damned obvious that you're carrying a concealed weapon." When he senses the other agent has paused at this comment and isn't following him out of the room, he calls over his shoulder, "It's the way you walk, son."

"Oh."

***

It's just as Christianson steps past Gibbs to leave the club that Gibbs sees her across the room. He sets the tumbler of bourbon down a little too forcefully on the bar. He doesn't believe in fate, coincidence, or the mind connection mumbo jumbo she's always talking about, but this is a little too convenient for his tastes.

He hasn't even been in Paris for twelve hours yet and he's already feeling fucked with.

He tried his hardest to shove out of his mind the knowledge that they would be occupying the same city, likely for the next week, because the thought of Abby and Emil Bojan on the same continent – let alone in the same country – makes him feel positively sick, and because he thinks it's the only way he'll survive this crazy mission. If it weren't for the fact that he wasn't exactly in a position to question anything at NCIS anymore, he would have questioned Jenny's sanity to her face for letting Abby travel while she was planning this mission.

He should leave, run as far as he can, as fast as he can. He's fairly sure they weren't followed to the L'Etage – Christianson wouldn't have chosen it as a meeting spot if he thought there was a chance of Bojan's men tailing them – but life has taught him not to take stupid risks.

He should get the hell out of there, but it's the first time he's really seen her in five months, except for a few brief moments during his return to help Ziva. He stayed away because he thought it was best for both of them – because if he hadn't, he wasn't sure he would have been strong enough to go back to Mexico. It's not just Ducky's observations that have him questioning the wisdom of that decision now.

So instead he drinks her in like a man dying of thirst. She's swaying slowly to the hypnotic beat, eyes shut, leaning against a much taller, much older man. He ruthlessly suppresses a flash of jealousy, his eyes wandering over her cheekbones, her jawline, the way the curve of her collarbone peeks out from underneath her silky black dress. He memorizes her face, missing her smile because, unlike her, he didn't keep any pictures when he moved to Mexico.

It's safer to pretend you're without memories.

He's just studying the curve of her hip under the folds of her dress when he feels her gaze on him. His eyes flicker up to her face for a moment – her eyes are wide with shock and he barely has a second to bite back a curse before she's pushing through the crowd towards him.

He throws his weight around in the melee to clear a path to the exit, pushing his way out onto the street and breaking into a full-on run, praying he'll make it around the next corner before she exits the club. The Rue du Fauborg du Temple has its usual nighttime crowds, but he knows Abby could pick him out anywhere, so he doesn't trust to the off chance that he'll be able to blend in. His eight-hundred-dollar leather shoes thumping agains the cobblestones, he darts into a narrow, darkened alleyway and presses his back against the wall. He stays there, forcefully evening out his breathing to try and calm his racing heartbeat, determined to wait out the chance that she might still be looking.

Which gives him ample time to add this to the list of reasons why leaving Mexico was a horrendous fucking idea.


	6. Chapter V: Charlie Foxtrot

AN: Charlie Foxtrot is phonetics for "clusterfuck." As the next few chapters will skip times and places and perhaps be somewhat confusing, I've added time and location markers for each section for the time being.

**Chapter V – Charlie Foxtrot**

_Tuesday morning_

_Thomas Bourne's villa_

_Versailles, France_

It's already light outside the next day when she sits up in bed, hands flying to her mouth as if to hold in a scream – she's not sure. The sudden terror leaves her in a second, and she's mostly calm by the time Tom, who dropped the book he was reading in the chair next to the bed, makes it by her side and perches there.

"What's wrong?" he asks, reaching to brush her dark curtain of hair back from her face.

She looks up at him, confusion clouding her eyes. Trying to hold onto the images in her dream is like trying to hold cupped water in her hands; she knows it was not about her father, because those dreams stay with her. This one clings hazily to her skin, yes, but it's unfamiliar – she can't see it. She remembers blood, someone singing or maybe praying. Crying.

She remembers Gibbs.

Shakes her head, lets Tom pull her closer, swallows down the sudden need to know where Gibbs is, to know he's okay. Lets herself be comforted.

Sometimes, before – well, just before, she'd wake up in the middle of the night and feel an inexplicable need to check on Gibbs, to make sure he was still there with his bourbon and his basement and his boat. The roads from her house to his were imprinted on her mind. She'd let herself in. Occasionally he would be asleep, but usually she'd find him at three or four in the morning. She'd do some sanding, drink some coffee – he'd try to talk her out of the caffeine, at least during the nighttime hours, but she'd have none of that. She'd leave after awhile, or go up to the guest room and curl up under the sheets, relieved to know he was safe.

Abby shakes off the memory, reminding herself that he's not hers to look after anymore, if he ever was. She doesn't have the right. She hopes he's okay in Mexico, prays he's on a beach somewhere with the only danger being himself insisting on using hand tools while drunk. Ignores resolutely the pull that won't go away.

Once she's sure she's fully in the present, she pulls back from Tom's embrace. "It's late."

"Only nine," he says. "You needed the sleep, and I value my life. Claudia would have come after me with her kitchen knives."

She rolls her eyes. "I'll sleep when I'm dead," she retorts with a grin, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and wandering into the bathroom. She leaves the door ajar, asking after their plans for the day through a mouthful of toothpaste as she brushes her teeth.

She rinses her mouth out in the middle of the requisite argument over whether to go to the Louvre. He complains that it's such a typical tourist spot, she guilt trips with the declaration that she'll regret it forever if she visits Paris and doesn't go. He gives in; she figures it's partly because she has him wrapped around her finger, but mostly because Claudia told her there's a restaurant overlooking the pyramids that he likes.

She never has the chance to surprise him.

---

_Wednesday afternoon_

_Emil Bojan's compound_

_Outside Carcassonne, France_

It's a six-hour trip from Paris to Bojan's vineyard in the heart of the Languedoc. The requisite period of back-and-forthing and hemming and hawing is cut significantly short this trip; whether it's because Bojan is sufficiently appeased by the warm renewal of their acquaintanceship or because Abu Sayyaf is putting pressure on him to speed up the process, Gibbs is not sure.

Either way, he is invited to revisit the vast, sprawling complex of the vineyard in a much shorter time period than during the first mission.

The vineyard is really a rather elaborate hoax; Bojan uses the land and his home there as a fortress. He has never had the desire to grow grapes, which is a shame, really, because the men he pays to keep the land make rather decent wine. Gibbs expects it has the potential to be great wine, if Bojan were to give up his more lucrative career as a weapons dealer and retire to run the vineyard.

But it's not the wine casks Gibbs is there to see. He spots four of Bojan's men in the trees before they even make it halfway up the sprawling drive to the mansion, which is so laden with security cameras as to nearly give its true purpose away.

Of all the things Gibbs enjoys about not being rich, the lack of necessity for security – other than his Sig and the shotgun he keeps in the living room – probably tops the list. Bojan is a paranoid man, and justifiably so, but this quality means that he is far more careful than many of the terrorists and terrorist suppliers Gibbs has taken down.

Gibbs doesn't lament the loss of his "partner" – he expects Parsons is almost back to the Marseilles resident unit office by now, or, if he's really lucky, off the case altogether and shipped back to the main NCIS Europe field office in Naples. Gibbs doesn't regret going into the proverbial lion's den unaccompanied; Parsons would likely have gotten the both of them killed, and that just won't do, at least not until the details of the meet with Abu Sayyaf are set. Gibbs just prays the operatives running the mission on the other end in Marseilles are holding up their end, because if they aren't, it's his ass on the line.

They pull up at the end of the long driveway that cuts through the sprawling low hills of the vineyard, and Gibbs follows Bojan towards the entrance of the mansion. Bojan's men already frisked him for weapons before he ever got into the limousine, but the guards posted at the entrance insist on doing it again, and Gibbs submits as gracefully as possible.

He misses the weight of the Sig on his belt and the feeling of a knife tucked against his ankle, and that only intensifies the sensation of wrongness in his gut, the sensation that's been there from the very beginning. He agreed to do the mission because someone had to and no one else could. He alone had the connections with Bojan to sufficiently pull it off, and Jenny knew that and used it to her advantage, painting a picture of the deaths of thousands that might result if he didn't volunteer. He didn't bother calling her on the fact that unless they took down Bojan this time, and not only the Abu Sayyaf sleeper cell competing with Gibbs for the buy, Bojan would have plenty of opportunities to cause more death and destruction – not just because of his thriving weapons trade but because the man was a conscienceless monster.

He didn't bother because, like the situation with Pula, the higher ups were content to twiddle their thumbs where Bojan was concerned as long as following him got them whatever end they needed on any given day. And that wasn't going to change.

He ignores that now, though, because he needs to plaster on an appropriately admiring face as he follows Bojan through the mansion, cataloguing the changes in security since the last time he was here. They take dinner in the private dining room, making small talk about things Gibbs won't remember later. He's expecting Bojan to suggest retiring for the evening when the man surprises him.

"I have something to show you."

The predatory gleam in his eye is unsettling, but then, for all his sophisticated exterior – he could easily pass for a university chancellor or a member of the presidential cabinet – Bojan is still a psychopath underneath. Gibbs follows the man through a labyrinth of hallways into the depths of the mansion, underground, keeping his mouth shut. It won't do to ask after the weapon and appear too eager this early in the game, but he hopes that's all he's down here to see.

They are at the end of a long hallway filled with doors on either side when Bojan pauses and reaches for the handle of one to Gibbs's left. He follows Bojan into the room, where the sound of fearful breathing meets his ears and he feels suddenly sick. Bojan looks back at him, and Gibbs thanks whatever god is listening that shock is not an expression his face is accustomed to wearing – his features have instead arranged themselves in an appropriate measure of mild surprise mixed with disgust.

A single misstep could blow this whole charade to hell and back.

Bojan's lips curve into a cruel smile, an incongruous expression on his patrician face. "I thought you might be pleasantly surprised."


	7. Chapter VI: Lost

**Chapter VI – Lost**

_Tuesday, early afternoon_

_Thomas Bourne's villa_

_Versailles, France_

Tom tried to follow Claudia's advice and not start seriously worrying until he called Tony. Abby had given them both each other's numbers in case of emergency; it was the only way Tony would be okay with her traveling. Tom had hoped never to have to use it, though. And now that he has, he's bypassed worried and gone straight onto terrified.

For all the white-knuckled stoicism painted on Claudia's features, he knows she is, too.

Abby had just gone to "powder her nose," as she jokingly put it. He should have waited by the damned door. Should have done _something_. The dam is breaking on the guilt that was kept at bay by the panic during his brief search of the museum for her.

He should have kept her safe.

***

_Tuesday morning_

_NCIS Headquarters_

_Washington Navy Yard_

Ziva and McGee are just coming off the elevator when Tony slams the phone down, scrubbing a hand pensively over his face.

"Wake up on the dark side of the bed?" Ziva asks with a wry grin as she dumps her backpack by her desk. Her teasing words are belied by her concerned gaze, which only makes Tony feel even worse.

It's a mark of how preoccupied he is that he doesn't bother correcting her idioms. He doesn't want Ziva and McGee to panic, because he's on the verge himself. But he can't lie to them, either. "Abby's missing," he says with a heavy sigh.

"Abby's _what_?" McGee, who was just about to sit down, freezes.

Tony grips the desk. "She was sightseeing with that friend of hers she's staying with. They were at the Louvre when she left to go to the head and just disappeared." He shrugs on the last word, the only gesture that really betrays the fear gnawing in his stomach. He wants desperately to believe that this is a simple twist of fate, but his gut – which he's learned to rely on most of the time in the absence of Gibbs's – is telling him it's not a coincidence. Gibbs returning. Abby going missing.

"Are the police doing anything?" McGee presses.

Tony shakes his head in frustration. "Tourists get lost all the time. They won't take a formal report for at least twelve hours."

Ziva lays a hand on his arm as he stands up to go to the director's office. "You know something," she says, looking up at him. He hates it when she holds his gaze like that, doesn't like being read like such an open book. He starts to pull away when she says, "Tony. Please."

And because her pleading is even worse, he finally nods, tendrils of guilt for not telling McGee and Ziva about seeing Gibbs that night surfacing yet again. "But it might be nothing. I'll let you know once I talk to Jenny."

He brushes past her and McGee, who is still standing still as if waiting to hear it's another joke, and takes the steps up to the director's office three at a time.

He doesn't bother knocking.

"You're nearly as bad as Gibbs," she says without looking up for her file.

Somewhere between reassuring Tom that he'll find some way to help and reassuring Ziva and McGee that he even has an idea of what the hell is going on, he finds he's gotten pissed at being kept out of the loop. "Where _is_ Gibbs, anyway?"

"His mission is classified. You know I can't – "

"Read me in." He leans on the edge of her desk across from her, still standing.

It must be the fear lurking behind the anger in his eyes, or maybe the dangerous edge that's crept into his voice, because she sighs and closes the file, leaning back in her chair. "I suppose it can't hurt anything. He's in France."

He expected her to say it, ever since the suspicion wormed its way into his mind while on the phone with Tom, but it still hits his body like a shock of freezing water when she does. He steps back from the desk and crosses his arms over his chest. "Let me guess. Paris." He doesn't give her time to answer before adding curtly, "And you didn't feel the need to inform me."

"It was none of your concern." Her face was impassive, but her eyes followed him as if he might explode at any moment.

"None of my concern?!"

"The office in Naples has all of the contacts, and the mission is being run out of Marseilles. It doesn't concern Abby. Or any of the teams here."

"Except Gibbs." Tony's expression is stony.

She doesn't bother prefacing her statement with, 'who is no longer an NCIS agent.' "He has a history with the arms dealer we need to go through to get to Abu Sayyaf. He's merely gathering the intel we need to ambush the meet between them." Her tense exterior finally breaks and she leans forward in her chair with a weary expression. "Tell me this is more than just your general paranoia about Abby and Jethro being in the same room since he left."

"She went missing from the Louvre this morning." Before Jenny can regain her composure, he adds, "And don't bother telling me this mission has nothing to do with it. It's too fucking convenient. He shows up and she disappears."

She doesn't agree immediately, but she doesn't trivialize the possibility either, which reassures him a little. "Let me talk to the field office in Marseilles, see if they can pull anything from the security tapes," she says.

"I'm leaving on the next flight out."

Jenny opens her mouth as if in protest but seems to think the better of it. "I'm worried, too, Tony," she says quietly. "Wait until we find out what was on the tapes before you run off half-cocked. I imagine McGee and Ziva will want to go with you."

"Fine." The word comes out tightly. He stalks towards the door.

"Don't let them know the details of Gibbs's situation yet," she says as he lays a hand on the doorknob. "And Tony?"

He turns back to face her briefly.

"We will find her."

The statement softens neither the fear in his heart nor the tension in his features. For once, the fact that his gut instinct is probably right makes him sick inside.

***

_Tuesday, late afternoon_

_Somewhere between Paris and Carcassonne, France_

When she wakes up, it takes her several minutes to remember who and where she is. Well, the where part doesn't really come; she can tell from the occasional jarring that she seems to be in a moving vehicle, probably a van of some sort. The confines of the space are pitch dark and she can barely see her hand in front of her face, even though she knows she can't have been out long enough for it to be night.

She's lying on her side, and she brings her knees up, curling into a fetal position and hugging into herself for comfort. She sniffles slightly to try and hold back tears, and when she touches a hand to her cheek as if to brush them away, there is a sticky, warm wetness on her fingers. When she licks at it experimentally, the metallic tang tells her it's blood.

She takes inventory; she definitely feels the worse for wear, a bruised rib or two and several other areas on her body already aching dully. She doesn't remember the beating that must have taken place when she was loaded in the van, rendering her unconscious; she only recalls the feeling of cold metal pressed against her stomach as her assailant marched her out of the museum, away from Tom, threatening to kill her or one of the many bystanders milling around if she made any protest. There was a group of kids touring the museum, so she managed a tight smile as they walked past.

Better to take her chances wherever she is headed than to bet on those odds.


	8. Chapter VII: Fragile Creatures

**Chapter VII – Fragile Creatures**

_Wednesday morning_

_NCIS Resident Unit Office_

_Marseilles, France_

When he received the call from Special Agent Christianson confirming what was on the security tapes, he merely set his jaw and ordered McGee and Ziva to make travel arrangements and pull up the dossier on Emil Bojan. He managed to keep it together through explaining the situation in as little detail as possible to Ducky. He managed to keep it together the entire flight to France, though every tiny annoyance had him on edge, and Ziva's driving hadn't bothered him at all on the roads to Marseilles – in fact, he insisted she drive.

It's not until he's sitting in a briefing room with the images of Abby being forced out of the museum against her will by some unknown quantity that Tony begins to fear he might not be able to get through this without breaking down. He and Abby kept each other together; she was his rock as much as he was hers. He doesn't think he can do this without her, but as Christianson pulls up the enhanced image of the man who kidnapped her on the plasma and confirms it to be one of Emil Bojan's men, he tells himself to stop thinking of her in the past tense and get it the fuck _together_.

As Christianson briefs them on the mission and on Bojan – and what the sick sadist is likely to be doing, right now, to their best friend – Tony forces himself to ignore the way Ziva's eyes harden and McGee's body shakes with anger. Forces himself not to think about Abby, because when the only comfort Christianson can offer is that she'll likely endure enough torture before Bojan murders her to buy them time to rescue her, it only strengthens the cold knot of fear in his gut.

_Wednesday afternoon_

_Emil Bojan's compound_

_Outside Carcassonne, France_

Had he the presence of mind, Gibbs would be grateful that Bojan doesn't wait for him to speak, because his vocal chords in those first few seconds seem to have forgotten their function. He's frozen in time, standing in the doorway wearing this ridiculous monkey suit, looming over Abby's thin frame, huddled on the floor in the corner of the room.

He'd thought about it after he'd gone home from the L'Etage Monday night, about how much he missed her. Thought about going back to D.C. when this was all over, imagined taking her in his arms while he sat cleaning his gun on the plush red couch back at the hotel. He allowed himself a few hours of downtime thinking about her, about his old life, before it was back to planning the mission. Had had the fervent hope that she'd enjoy her conference and make it back to D.C. without once thinking about him, after that terrifying near-discovery at the club.

He barely has a chance to look her in the eyes before he has to look up at Bojan's face again. The amusement, curious and morbid, that he sees there forcefully turns his stomach.

"You see, one of my men reported that you had a drink with another old friend, but that you seemed quite interested in this woman," Bojan continues. "So naturally, I got curious."

Gibbs manages a tight smile. "Naturally. I'm afraid it was just a misunderstanding – she thought I looked like someone she knew, I think." His tone is measured, possibly even nonchalant. "I'd never seen her before in my life."

"Well, then," Bojan says as he walks over to stand behind her and pulls his knife from its pouch at his waist, "you won't mind if I..."

As Bojan is turned towards Abby and away from him for those few seconds, Gibbs makes eye contact with her again and his hands flicker for the briefest of moments. _Say nothing._ In his cynical way of expecting the worst, he suspects they are seriously fucked, but there is always the chance that they are simply being toyed with.

"...have a little fun?" Bojan continues, stepping behind Abby and lifting her to her feet, pulling her back against him.

Whether Gibbs is being toyed with or not, he might make it out of here whole, but he's intensely afraid that she won't.

Abby's dark hair fans across Bojan's broad chest, but her green eyes focus on Gibbs, wide and fearful. As the light plays over her face, he can see the outline of bruises and has to fight the anger rising up, threatening to betray him.

He can't, however, stop the involuntary tensing in his muscles when Bojan splays one hand across her stomach, lifting her blouse, and with the other, draws the knife over her skin. The cut isn't deep, but her hissed intake of breath affects Gibbs more deeply than he'll allow it to show.

Bojan notices the ever-so-slight shift in his demeanor that no amount of acting on Gibbs's part will be able to hide, however. The man is a consummate expert at reading people. When he says, "I thought so. Lovers, then?" Gibbs wants to say something to wipe the guilt off of Abby's face, to tell her that they were caught before he even had them in the same room together, that there's nothing she could have done differently.

Bojan punctuates his words, pressing his lips against Abby's neck, his eyes still locked with Gibbs', and she jerks in his arms, muttering, "Son of a bitch," none too quietly. An amused laugh escapes the sadist's lips.

Gibbs is pondering the merits of rushing him for the knife, calculating the likely odds that it will merely get both of them killed, when one of Bojan's men steps into the room. The man ignores the scene before him, but the way Abby tenses even more in Bojan's arms leads Gibbs to suspect that he's the one who kidnapped her and brought her here. But he's armed, and despite knowing the horror Emil Bojan is capable of wreaking, Gibbs isn't yet ready to gamble with Abby's life.

So he waits quietly while the man informs Bojan in a tightly controlled voice of "complications" with Abu Sayyaf and allows Bojan to restrain him without giving the bastard the satisfaction of fighting back and getting pistol-whipped for the effort.

Abby waits until the door closes behind the two men to sag against the wall in relief, her body going from stoic to shaking in a matter of seconds. She slides down to the floor, next to the anchor holding the chain to which her cuffed hands are secured. The restraints, like Gibbs', only allow for a minimum of movement – standing, lying down – and have already created bruises on her delicate wrists.

The first thing she says is, "I was hoping this had nothing to do with you. Stupid, right?" Her shaky, humorless laugh doesn't bother him half as much as the way she looks at him – like he's savior and curse all rolled into one. The relief he saw there when she realized she wasn't alone has been tempered with a kind of stoic self-control, as if she's afraid of reaching out to him, of showing weakness.

When he realizes this, it's the first time he really understands what Ducky and Tony and even Jen were trying to tell him. The evident lack of trust he sees when he looks at her is wholly heartbreaking. And wholly deserved.

"I doubt they're bothering to watch or bug the room," Gibbs says, settling back against the opposite wall, "but we should be careful anyway."

She nods, catching her lower lip between her teeth and folding her legs underneath her. "Tony," _and the director, _she adds, her signs jerky, "should be aware by now that something's wrong. What about you?"

The cuffs on their hands are separated by a short chain, allowing just enough slack for Gibbs to sign brokenly in return. _Deep cover. Supposed to get intel through tomorrow. _"I don't know yet. They might start missing me then." There is a similar chain connecting his ankles together and to the anchor on the floor across from her, so he can only stretch his legs out in front of him, his hands falling in his lap. It's an oddly casual position, the wrongness of the whole situation exacerbated by his visceral need to feel her closer. "How badly did they beat you?" he asks after a moment, hoping that it's just the bruises on her face and arms and nothing else yet.

"A few bruised ribs, I think," she responds. "So far." She lets out a slow, heavy breath. "If I hadn't come after you – if I hadn't exposed you – this wouldn't have happened."

It's not a question, but he answers it anyway, shaking his head vehemently. "I should have left the club before you saw me, and I suspect he had men planted at my hotel as well. Our profile this time around was flawed. This would have happened no matter what you did." He stares into her green eyes, trying not to get lost, as he emphasizes the words. "Do you understand me? This is _not your fault_."

She looks as if she's turning the words over in her mind, considering them. "What does he want with me?" she asks finally. "I was here for at least twelve hours, I think, until you showed up. I don't understand."

It's so utterly Abby – the need to find logic in Bojan's actions – that a lump rises in his throat as he tries to think of how to explain. He doesn't want to tell her what he thinks will happen, because he's hoping against hope that he's wrong, that the man will simply torture him for information and be done with it. But he won't lie to her, either.

"I don't know, Abbs." The nickname feels like a liberty he doesn't deserve anymore, but it falls from his lips nonetheless, hanging in the air between them, a comforting familiarity. "He's a sadistic psychopath. There might be some useful information he could try to get from me, but not much, and he's more likely to want to keep us here for his amusement than anything else."

She swallows hard and he can tell she's fighting the urge to wrap her arms around herself. The restraints make it impossible. "Okay," she whispers after awhile.

The silence is all-encompassing, but he's afraid to break it. He just listens to the sound of her breathing. He doesn't know how many minutes or hours it's been since she last spoke when he hears her scoot across the floor, the chain scraping against the cement.

She must read the question in his eyes when he looks up at her, because she shrugs helplessly. "I just...I need – " Her breath catches as a few tears slip down her cheeks and she reaches up to wipe them away impatiently. "I'm cold, Gibbs."

"Okay." He pretends he doesn't hear the _I'm scared_ lurking behind her words.

They're so far away from each other that when she lies down, stretching her hands towards him, she still can't reach him. He slides down until he's lying on the floor before she can open her mouth to ask, but in the end their fingers only barely come close to touching. This is the cruelest part – not that they are chained up in the middle of nowhere, likely about to endure a very painful death over the next several days, but that he can't even take her into his arms. He curses himself for a fool when he thinks about the months he wasted.

He's brought back to the present when he hears her swallow a sob. "Tell me about Mexico," she says in a shaky voice.

He understands it for what it is – a way to distract herself, and him, from their current circumstances. So he focuses on the sensation of the little bit of her body heat he can feel from where their hands are almost touching, and, against his usually terse nature, begins to talk.


	9. Chapter VIII: Secret Keepers

**WARNING - This chapter earns the torture warning in spades, guys. There's going to be a bit more in chapters nine and possibly ten, but the bulk of it is in this chapter, and it's pretty heavy duty.**

**Chapter VIII – Secret Keepers**

_Thursday, early morning_

_Emil Bojan's compound_

_Outside Carcassonne, France_

It's pitch dark when Gibbs wakes with a start. At first he's not sure what caused him to wake, until he hears the creak of the door pushing the rest of the way open and the room is suddenly drowned in stark light. He instinctively moves to cover his face, hands pressing against the chains binding him, the bruising cold uncurling deep within his muscles.

He sits up slowly, sliding back towards the wall where his bonds are anchored in order to slacken the tension in the chains and give his wrists some freedom of movement. Abby is stirring from her prone position on the floor, mumbling something. They must have fallen asleep while he was talking; it doesn't feel as though he's been out more than a few hours.

One of Bojan's henchmen – Gibbs thinks his name is Stephan – comes in with another man Gibbs doesn't recognize. Stephan goes to lift Abby from the floor by her hair, and she flinches away. Gibbs's mouth tightens; he suspects Stephan is the one responsible for kidnapping and beating Abby. He doesn't have much time to reflect, however, as the other man comes over to tighten the chains holding his wrists together, forcing him to his feet and unhooking the length of metal securing the manacles to the floor.

Abby begins to ask where they are being taken, but Stephan cuts her off and orders her to shut up. It doesn't matter, anyway – they are merely marched across the hall and into another concrete block room, this one with various implements of torture lining one wall and a hook hanging from the low ceiling. Gibbs is tied to another anchor in the corner, more securely this time, feeling almost no slack in his hands as he tests the bonds.

He looks up to see Abby's hands shaking as the chain linking her wrists together is lifted onto the hook. She's forced onto her toes – it is a classic stress position, one that quickly becomes unbearably painful. Gibbs knows this from brief experience. Her eyes lock with his and he sees a flicker of blind terror before her face hardens and she spits angrily at Stephan.

"Is this supposed to make me afraid?"

Stephan backhands her in response, the force shoving her off balance, and she bites back a cry. Gibbs's fists tighten at the sound. When she lifts her head, regarding her captor with nothing but defiance, there is blood trickling from a cut on her cheek caused by the heavy gold ring the man wears. When she opens her mouth again, Gibbs starts to speak, to try and stop her from making it worse for herself, but the sound of the door opening once more gives him pause.

_Thursday, early morning_

_Emil Bojan's compound_

_Outside Carcassonne, France_

Abby can see Gibbs's need to shut her the hell up in his every clenched gesture; she doesn't need to wait for him to open his mouth and tell her. His survival instinct is admirable.

It's not that she has a death wish, although she's been accused of it many times over the years.

She's just cold. And hungry. And pissed the fuck _off_.

She's sick of being curled in the corner waiting for the worst to happen. Feels like she's been stuck there for months, ever since the world fell apart around her, like she's just been bracing for the impact. She's sick of the fear – sick to death with it. She wants it _out_.

She opens her mouth to bait Stephan once more, her tongue darting out to lick at the sticky wetness dripping from the corner of her lip, when the door creaks. She doesn't need to see whatever fresh hell has emerged through it; the tension in her shoulders makes it impossible to turn, anyway. The fury etching lines around Gibbs's mouth tells her it's Bojan.

"Still causing trouble, I see, Miss Sciuto," he says, ignoring Gibbs and coming around to face her. He takes her chin in his hand and she matches him glare for glare. Then he stares her up and down as if appraising her, and orders Stephan to strip her.

_Hail Mary, full of grace..._ The litany hums through her mind, but she keeps her eyes on Bojan – harnessing her fury to save herself from blushing red with shame. Modesty is not generally her strong suit, and considering the mess they've found themselves in, it's the last thing on earth she should be concerned with, really, but she can't help the regret that this is definitely not the circumstance in which she first wanted Gibbs to see her naked.

But then that brings up the thought of the tangle of emotions that led to wanting Gibbs to see her naked, and love has not gotten her anywhere. Lust has won her less. She shrugs off the memories, instead biting down hard on the anger, her whole body thrumming with it as the flat of Stephan's blade drags against her bare skin.

"Abigail Bernadette Sciuto," Bojan says, standing in front of her – between her and Gibbs – once Stephan has finished divesting her of her clothing. "Your family's Italian, but you're from a poor section of New Orleans. And yet you grew up to become, by all accounts, a world-famous scientist."

She rolls her eyes and affects as thoughtful an expression as she can muster while still practically hanging from the ceiling by her wrists. "Emil Bojan. You're...no, don't tell me – Serbian. Let me guess. Your family was tortured and mercilessly killed in the war and you've decided to honor their memories by becoming a sadistic murderer."

"Abby!" Gibbs shouts from behind Bojan's less than imposing form. "You're going to – "

"No, let the woman speak." Bojan holds up a hand, a smirk coloring his features. The man reeks of wealth. And a considerable lack of good taste or breeding. "I quite like you," he says, tapping her nose. "You know, I think I may not kill you after all. Your expertise could prove...useful in my trade."

"Go to hell," she says. It's cliche and theatrical, but it makes her feel better. A little bit.

When Bojan shifts his weight, she can see past him to the pole-axed expression on Gibbs's face. Clearly it's not making _him_ feel any better.

"Oh, I'm sure we'll see each other there one day, my love," Bojan says, and she has to fight not to cringe back from the finger he drags down her cheek. "In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy breaking you."

Before she has a chance to wonder as to the man's method of choice, Stephan hands Bojan a single-tail whip. She expects to feel the hiss of it against her skin immediately, but instead Bojan clasps his hands behind his back, pacing for a moment.

"Unfortunately, this is not merely a pleasurable venture on my part," he says. "My..._friends_...in Abu Sayyaf are understandably concerned about the latest chatter on the intelligence circuit." He stops abruptly, turning to face Gibbs. "It may be that your involvement is the only ridiculous attempt to ambush my sale, but in the interest of maintaining a good business – you understand – I must be certain."

Abby's eyes are on Gibbs's face the whole time, willing him to look away from Bojan, but he locks gazes with the man and she can see him harden to steel. She hopes, for both their sakes, that he's not so hard he'll break.

"If you were to offer information, I might be persuaded to allow Miss Sciuto to remain relatively unharmed."

Abby doesn't realize she's holding her breath for the few minutes the two men stare each other down until Bojan turns back to her and Gibbs meets her eyes. Then it comes out in an abbreviated exhalation, the tension on her chest mounting. She finds herself hoping, ironically, that Bojan is as experienced a torturer as he pretends to be, for all his grandstanding. Because if he screws up and suffocates her prematurely, she's going to be _really_ pissed. She still has time to buy for Tony to rescue them.

Or at least to rescue Gibbs.

She swallows down the emotion clogging her throat at that, her eyes flickering away from Gibbs momentarily and then back to where he sits crouched on the floor. She doesn't flinch at the first few blows from the whip, not even when the intensity increases to the point that she knows it will leave a welt across her back.

She'd expected something out of _Hostel_, and she's oddly comforted that it's more along the lines of S&M pornography than anything else. Perhaps the man is compensating for something. Or perhaps...perhaps it's just a warm-up, she discovers when she fucks up and taunts him about it.

"I did not expect you to be so eager," he says, coming around to stand before her once more, gripping her by the chin again and studying her face. She wants to say something, but everything she can think of will show the holes in her carefully constructed, incredibly flimsy armor. "Very well," he adds after a moment. "Stephan, the cross."

She doesn't have a chance to wonder what's happening before Stephan lifts her from the hook and she bites back a cry at the tension releasing from her shoulders. She's near to boneless from the waist up when he unhooks her hands to attach the chains to a St. Andrew's cross. She's facing towards the wood of the cross, still facing Gibbs but leaning forward far enough now that it takes the pressure off of her upper body.

At least he plans to let her live long enough to cause her more pain. She says a quick prayer of thanks to St. Andrew.

It's not her she's worried about, though. She's seen Gibbs in nearly every kind of situation before, and his control is hanging by a rapidly fraying thread.

"Do you know what a _sjambok_ is, girl?" Bojan asks, walking around to face her once more.

She closes her eyes. "A heavy whip, popular for use in riot control. Originally from South Africa. Outlawed in most places now." When she opens her eyes again, she's mercifully staring into Bojan's face and not Gibbs'. "Usually only available in plastic these days, where it's legal, but knowing a man with discerning tastes such as yourself, yours is...hmm." She lets her eyes flicker up and down Bojan's body as if she's sizing up his manhood. "Rhinoceros hide?"

"Hippopotamus," he corrects her. She doesn't look when Stephan hands him the implement; she's seen what kind of damage a _sjambok_ can do. She carefully avoided listing the dangers just in case Gibbs wasn't already aware. She swallows down the abject terror threatening to bubble up in her stomach, and braces herself for the first blow.

The warning hiss doesn't help, and she's irrationally grateful for the support of the cross, because otherwise she'd have buckled. She can't affect the same indifference she did before, but she holds Gibbs's gaze nonetheless, trying not to wear all her emotions on her sleeve. He's taught her a thing or two about that over the years.

The _sjambok_ is so heavy that one light blow feels like the hardest lash from a smaller whip, and it easily breaks the skin. She cries out on the third blow and pushes away case studies of crushing injuries and damaged organs from her consciousness.

On the fifth blow, Gibbs opens his mouth as if to speak, and Bojan pauses. She can practically feel the man's cruel smile against her back, and her gaze turns hot enough to melt steel. "I swear to God, Gibbs, if you tell him anything, I will kill you myself."

It's enough that they are both being abused, that they both might die. Bojan will not manipulate them as well. She doesn't know the full details of the mission, and she doesn't need to – it won't be betrayed while there's still breath left in her body.

Abigail Bernadette Sciuto. Bernadette for the saint, the one who had visions of the Virgin Mother. The litany begins again, this time with gratitude that it's just her upper and lower back suffering the blows, that Bojan has sense enough to avoid her organs and her already damaged ribs. _Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now.... _This time with a prayer for strength, but not for herself.

He's up to twenty lashes when she begins to lose count and drift to somewhere beyond pain. With what little awareness remains at that point she thinks she could keep count by the look on Gibbs's face; unlike the unreadable mask he usually presents to the world, he is past having lost control. Tears stream down his cheeks and she almost believes that for once she could read his every emotion behind his eyes, if only she had the strength left to try.

Her own face is shuttered. Only her eyes speak anymore, and before she closes them she tries to tell him it's okay, tries to tell him not to worry. Her last conscious thought is not of Gibbs, though.

_Tony. I'm sorry._


End file.
